Lectures on Painting, Delivered to the Students of the Royal Acadamy. Edward Armitage
may be argued that as he personates the Good Shepherd, the artists of course give him a shepherd’s dress, but that this dress may have been totally unlike the one he actually wore.
This is perfectly true, and I am not recommending the blind adoption of this shepherd’s tunic. I merely mention these earliest representations of Christ, as an answer to those who argue for the antiquity of the red and blue. If in the absence of precise information we allow ourselves to be guided by precedent, it is only logical to go to the earliest precedent.
The truth is that there are two distinct methods of treating subjects from the New Testament, especially those where Christ himself is introduced.
One is the traditional or mediæval method, and the other the naturalistic or (as I prefer to call it) the natural method, the word “naturalistic” being generally applied to the grotesque style of the early German and Dutch masters.
The first or traditional method seems to me more suitable for stained-glass windows and for church decoration generally, than for easel pictures. In decorative work no one expects to see the apostles and saints clad in the homely garments they certainly wore.
The figures are to a certain extent symbolical; they represent the personages beatified; and gorgeously colored mantles with jewelled borders, nimbi, and other mediæval ornaments are not so much out of place.
Even here I would depart from the traditional red and blue for the dress of Christ. White and gold are more suggestive of perfection and purity than strong colors, and I cannot help thinking that the red tunic which tradition gives to St. John is singularly inappropriate to his character.
I do not, however, wish to extend my remarks in this direction, but rather to confine what I have to say about costumes to real, and not to ideal dresses.
If there exists a danger of degrading the ancient Jewish patriarchs by giving them the dress which they probably wore, the danger becomes greatly intensified when we have to deal with the sacred personages of the New Testament. Nevertheless, I think that something might be done toward an approximation to truth without any irreverence.
In the first place, I would discard all strong positive reds, blues, and purples for the dresses, as inappropriate. To wear garments of these bright hues was the prerogative of kings, emperors, and great generals, and it is quite out of keeping with the spirit of the New Testament to clothe its personages in these imperial colors.
White, dull yellow, brown, and black are the colors to which I should principally adhere. Linen, bleached and unbleached, goats’ hair, and wool of all shades, from creamy white to sooty black, would be the materials.
Clemens of Alexandria says: “All dyed colors should be avoided in dress, for these are far away from man’s need and from truth; and besides they give proof of evil in the inward disposition.”
Tertullian, who wrote about two hundred years after Christ, has a whole chapter denouncing the iniquity of dyed colors.
Now it is hardly conceivable that these early Christian writers would have fulminated against red, purple, and blue garments if Christ and his apostles had been in the habit of wearing them.
Secondly, I should endeavor, while preserving the tunic and outer cloak or pallium, to give to these garments something of an Oriental appearance. There is not much scope for doing this with the tunic. Rich men, like Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, would wear long tunics reaching to their ankles; but it is very doubtful whether Christ himself, who denounces the scribes on account of their loving to go in long clothing, would wear a garment of this description.
The women would have two tunics, one over the other, with short or long sleeves, but never with the open sleeves of the Greek women.
The under tunic (which would, in fact, be the Roman stola) would reach to the feet. The upper one would be shorter, and embroidered or ornamented with colors.
The pallium or cloak, both of the men and the women, should have a fringe; not a heavy gorgeous one, like the Assyrian kings, but a thin light one.
In the 22d chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses commands: “Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture,” and in the Book of Numbers these fringes are again ordained. When we consider how particular the Jews were in observing their law, we may assume, as a fact, that the cloak or outer garment of the New Testament would have a fringe, and this would at once give it a Jewish or Oriental character. Broad vertical stripes again, either on the tunic or the cloak, of a different colored wool to the garment itself, would be unlike Greek or Roman fashions, and would be perfectly allowable.
Thirdly, I should not hesitate (when the subject required it) about covering the heads of my figures.
In most Biblical pictures by the old masters, particularly of the Roman school, we find the figures bareheaded.
There does not seem to be any special reason for this, and whatever may have been the practice in Italy, it certainly could not be the custom in Syria and Palestine to expose the head to the burning rays of the sun.
St. Peter and the other Galilee fishermen may very likely have worn some kind of Phrygian cap, and we may be quite sure that all the personages of the New Testament would have had some protection for the head; probably a loose cloth bound round the head with a cord.
Some writers have said that they merely threw a portion of the cloak over their heads. This they very likely did on an emergency, but when undertaking a journey or wandering about the country, they must have had a proper head-covering.
As to the shoes, I should avoid both the elegant sandal of the Greeks, and the elaborate leggings and straps of the Roman soldier.
The ordinary Jew, of the class to which the apostles belonged, was not in the habit of wearing any foot-covering at home, but when on a journey he would protect the soles of his feet with leather or goat-skin.
It is a mistake to suppose that garments made of coarse materials are incompatible with dignity. Any one who has seen the fishermen of the Adriatic or the Arabs of the desert, knows the contrary. It is not the material, but the amplitude of the garment and the mode of wearing it, which give grandeur and dignity.
We, as artists, have no means of making our personages speak. All we can do is to take care that their gestures, appearance, and dress, shall not be inconsistent with the words they are supposed to utter. If we bear this in mind, and at the same time honestly endeavor to clothe them according to their station in life, we cannot be far wrong.
Before leaving the subject of the New Testament, I should like to say a few words about the position the Jews assumed at their meals. I endeavored to get at the truth a year or two ago, and the results of my investigations were these.
The rich Jews, like the rich Romans, reclined at their meals; the poor either stood or sat. Of this there can be no doubt, and it is only what might have been expected. The rich would have a proper dining-hall, fitted with a triclinium or couch. The poor would dine in the same room in which they worked, and would have no place for so bulky a piece of furniture as a broad couch.
As for the Last Supper, it must be recollected that the room where it was eaten was an upper room, and therefore very unlikely to be furnished with a triclinium; and, secondly, it was more in keeping with Christ’s teaching to adopt the humble fashion of sitting rather than the luxurious one of reclining. Finally, all the Evangelists use the word “sat” and “sitting,” which, if correctly translated, ought surely to settle the question.
On the whole, therefore, I think that Leonardo, Andre del Sarto, Raffaelle, and all the old masters were right in giving the figures a sitting posture, and that modern innovators are wrong in assuming that because Roman patricians and their imitators in Judæa reclined at their meals, our Lord, and his disciples would also adopt the same position.
The costume of the ancient Romans under the kings was very like that of the Greeks. The resemblance was especially noticeable in military costume. If, therefore, you have to paint any Roman or Sabine warriors of the time of the early kings, you should take